


With You

by arianrhod



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arianrhod/pseuds/arianrhod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tvconnoisseur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvconnoisseur/gifts).



> The epigraph is from "Cosmic Love" by Florence and the Machine.

_you were in the darkness too  
so I stayed in the darkness with you_

*

“It’s morning.”

Harry heard Hermione through the haze of early morning sleep. _But we still need to outrun those grumdingers_ , he thought rather illogically before he shakes off the last traces of a dream.

All he could see was a giant poof of Hermione’s hair but he can feel Ron’s arm stretched across his waist. The hand, he noticed, was relaxed across Hermione’s ribs. He held completely still for a second, thinking quite easily of how he was warm, how he was safe, how Hermione seemed to be insisting they get up by working herself free of the tangle of Harry and Ron’s arms.

Ron shifted behind him; his arm withdrew. “Mum’s probably made breakfast already,” he said, sitting up on Harry’s other side. Ron’s bedroom was a bit chilly now that both of them have pulled away from him, but the warm spring day beginning outside was already beginning to creep up the stairs to the top of the Burrow.

All three made short and quiet work of changing into houseclothes; Harry had to stifle the part of his mind that instinctively began worrying about where their next meal was coming from, how long his jumper would last and where he would get another, and would they need to relocate ( _run_ ) today. There are solid walls and even more solid spells around the house, there are wood floors under his feet and a bed in the corner instead of grass and camp bunks.

It was the smell of breakfast--something Harry could not identify beyond “warm”--that pulled him fully into the present. It had only been three days since the Battle for Hogwarts, as Mr. Weasley tells them it was named. While Harry felt pulled in a number of different directions by new Ministry officials, by a well-meaning Professor McGonagall, it was ( _would always be_ ) the pull of his closest friends, his family that he followed. For a split second, sitting with them outside Hogwarts all in a shock, Harry had considered throwing his invisibility cloak over them all and disApparating back to the wilderness where no one could find them again.

Luckily, when Ron and Hermione each took one of his hands and they disappeared in a flash, they reappeared at the Burrow where Mrs. Weasley gamely fended off hunger, grief, nightmares, and reporters with equal supply of gravity and forceful cooking.

Her effort today took the shape of a rather monstrous looking omelet, piled at least as high as Harry’s nose and smelling of more things than Harry thought possible to fit between two layers of egg. Ron and Hermione had taken seats on one side of the table while Harry contemplated the hyperbolic breakfast offering, but they had left a chair open for Harry between them; he hesitated for three beats until Hermione glared pointedly at Harry and then the chair. As he sat, the rest of the Weasley family ( _the survivors_ ) filtered into the kitchen and occupied the remaining chairs.

George, like Harry, Hermione and Ron, rarely had much to say in the days following the Battle and Fred’s funeral. The conversation was generally carried on by Mr. and Mrs. Weasley plus Ginny. It wasn’t terribly forced, as if the three of them could tell that the others appreciated the noise without the pressure to fill the silence themselves. On the more difficult days, they turned on the radio and switched it to Muggle stations to avoid the news.

Halfway through breakfast--though only a quarter of the way through the omelet--Harry set his silverware gently to the side.

“I think I need to go,” he said.

Mrs. Weasley had been talking but halted awkwardly mid-word. A significant silence followed, punctuated by hesitant bites of egg and surreptitious chewing noises. “Not from breakfast, I mean,” Harry added hastily. “The omelet is lovely, really, but I need to go from the Burrow, I think.”

“Harry, you mustn't. You’re family, you must stay.” Mrs. Weasley’s voice had an edge to it--not precisely frantic but certainly firm. “It’s still very dangerous, not all the Death Eaters have been caught and there wouldn’t be... well, there wouldn’t be much peace for you, I think.”

“I’m sorry, it’s-- You’re family, you all are, really I’m very grateful, but I can’t stay. There’s too much... I’m sorry, I’m very thankful but I need to figure some things out on my own.” Harry halted again, unable to explain anything, unable to express the knot of anxious thankfulness and restlessness he could barely sort out himself. “I need to be somewhere else, after all that’s happened. I don’t know why, I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright, Harry. We all understand.” It was Ron who spoke, standing and putting his hand on Harry’s shoulder. A survey of the faces around the table showed that Ron was being honest; George and Ginny looked sympathetic, Mr. Weasley worried, and Mrs. Weasley sad, but there wasn’t any anger or fear ( _used it all up_ ).

On his other side, Hermione had grabbed his hand and was squeezing it hard while she let Ron do the talking. Harry was momentarily distracted by a memory of eleven-year-old Hermione drowning Ron with her non-stop chatter.

Mrs. Weasley stood and fixed Harry with a very watery smile. “That’s fine, Harry. I’ll just pack you up a few meals--though you will make sure to come back for regular meals, young man--and a charm or two, to ward of undesirable interest, Death Eaters, reporters, Ministers of Magic, whatever you need.”

Harry gave her a slightly watery smile of his own.

*

“Ginny?” Harry said softly. He could feel Ron and Hermione’s eyes on his back which made him shift his rucksack nervously on his shoulders. Ginny’s face was unreadable but she didn’t stop him.

“Ginny, I--” Harry stopped. He had rehearsed a few different speeches, where he explained to her how things between them felt heavy but he was too tired to figure out how to pick up that weight, to shoulder the seriousness of bringing another person into his life, of maybe having a real family ( _something to lose_ ). “I’ll be back. I promise.”

“Okay, Harry. I’ll be here.” She smiled, reached out and gently cupped his jaw, lightly kissing his cheek before he had time to argue himself into pulling away. She smiled again, firmly, and walked back inside.

“Come on, Harry, we’ll go with you to the doorstep,” Hermione called to him.

*

Harry was glad he still felt comfortable at Grimmauld Place; since he had walked to his own death with his loved ones, since he had finally defeated Voldemort, his grief over Sirius slept more easily in his heart. It also didn’t hurt that Kreacher had cleared away all the dust, polished every item that would take a polish and washed the rest. The creepiest Black items of questionable origin had also been spirited away somewhere--hopefully not to a pile in a closet where Harry might encounter them accidentally one day.

The house elf had insisted that Harry eat at least two courses of the massive meal Kreacher had prepared and then take Sirius’ room for sleeping. Mercifully Kreacher had cleared the room of all personal items outside of books. Harry didn’t want to think too hard about how he would feel looking at Sirius old clothing, letters, photos, any of it. Maybe there was an equally perilous closet full of these things as well.

Harry spent a long time sitting on the bed in the silence of the house, rather blissfully empty of words and emotions and quite free of anyone to express these to in any case. Somewhere, sometime in this emptiness he fell asleep.

*

At the deepest time of night, Harry was jolted awake by the screams of multiple alarms. The wards on the door were reacting and a persistent and ominous thumping was very nearly rattling the windows. He sat frozen for a full minute, absolutely torn between run run run right now and someone is knocking answer the door. Luckily, after the humming of nondescript terror in his brain quieted a little, he was able to have several coherent thoughts regarding the type of people who would have the knowledge ( _trust_ ) to make it as far as the front door, and the type of people who would then have the courtesy to knock once getting there.

By the time Harry had made it to the entryway and silenced the protective spells, nearly five minutes had passed. The knocking had continued the whole time, however, so Harry didn’t hesitate to pull the door open, albeit with wand in hand, poised with _Stupefy_ on his tongue.

“Harry, thank god, thank god.” It was neither Death Eater nor Daily Prophet gossip columnist; it was Ron who spoke from the doorway, and Hermione was with him. Except Ron looked deathly pale and he had both of his arms around Hermione. She herself had one arm around Ron’s waist and the other was covering her mouth, trying to stifle wrenching, anguished sobs. At the sight of Harry, she had made a strangled moan so unlike anything Harry had ever heard from Hermione that he felt the bottom disappear from his stomach. He wasn’t sure which of the three of them moved first, but Ron and Hermione ended up in the entryway with Harry pulled tight into their arms.

Harry hugged them close, allowing them to wrap him up, but his anxiety became too great; he wanted to pull away, tried to find the evidence of injury on Hermione or Ron. He could barely speak for fear, but he managed to gasp, “What is it? What is it? What’s happened?”

“Nothing, Harry,” Ron said, but he hugged Harry harder which simply made Harry more worried.

“Harry!” breathed Hermione. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she gulped for air, “I’m so sorry. You died, you died, oh Harry, you were dead.” Her arm tightened almost painfully around his ribs.

Nothing makes any sense anymore, Harry thought, but since he was sure that he was alive ( _this time_ ) so he let them hold him, patting their shoulders and wondering if it made a difference.

*

“Since when did you become so touchy with me, mate?” Harry said to Ron later in the kitchen, half-joking. Hermione was in the study where they’d slept their first night on the run, sipping water, blowing her nose, and being tended to by a suddenly sympathetic Kreacher. Harry had shook his head over the house elf and led Ron to the kitchen to get an actual explanation for their unexpected visit.

Ron, however, did not appear in the mood even for partial jokes. In fact, Ron was wearing an expression so unfamiliar that Harry’s stomach threatened to crash with fear for a second time. Completely serious, completely composed, tracing fatigue and grief but free of anger or jealousy, Ron looked Harry in the eye as one who had earned every inch of his maturity and certainly he was the one who had supported Hermione and grounded Harry just moments before in the entryway. Harry took a breath and tried something different.

“What happened?”

“We saw you dead, Harry, that’s what happened” Ron said quietly, with the same seriousness he carried on his face. “We saw you dead at Voldemort’s feet. After months of running, after months of hiding and fighting. You were dead.”

Harry was too stunned to respond. “Hermione had a nightmare about it,” Ron added, as if an afterthought.

Harry felt as though the rest of the air had been pressed out of his lungs and he would never figure out how to get another breath. The silence became a roar and Harry’s hands felt numb, felt cold ground at his back, heard his friends shouting--

After far too long, Harry was finally able to find words. “I wasn’t dead,” he breathed. And then breathed again. “When you saw me, I wasn’t dead. Voldemort killed me,” Harry nearly choked on that, “but I came back, and I was alive when you and Hermione saw me.”

Ron let out a shaky breath and at last his face relaxed into a more familiar sort of acceptance. “I’m not sure if it makes much of a difference,” he said slowly, “since we still believed you were dead, but it helps.” Harry wasn’t sure either but he thought, maybe, it helped him too. Certainly it explained why Ron and Hermione could not let go of him, insisted on smashing Harry between both of them, refusing to go off and have their own relationship as Harry had expected they would.

“We should go back to her, and you should tell her,” Ron said, reaching to grab Harry’s shoulder ( _to make sure you’re really alive_ ) but he hesitated mid-gesture. Harry paused for a second and then reached out to grab Ron’s shoulder with his own hand.

*

Ron and Hermione spent that night at Grimmauld Place. Hermione had wanted to take Harry back to the Burrow with them, but she had been pacified by a promise that they would all sleep in Sirius’ room as they had in Ron’s--Harry in the middle.

This night was the first in a pattern of many nights. A few days after Harry left the Burrow, he had a panic attack during dinner, suddenly and without warning finding himself in the clearing in the woods, Voldemort and his Death Eaters arrayed in horrifying clarity before him, Hagrid’s shouts ringing in his ears. He could not look away as Voldemort raised his wand against him; he tried to remember where he really was, what he had been doing, but all he could see was green fire and Hagrid’s shouts got louder and louder.

He must have passed out because he woke on the kitchen floor to the crack of Kreacher Apparating back to the house with Ron and Hermione in each hand. Harry had never seen Kreacher looking anything vaguely close to worried, but he did now; Ron and Hermione likewise took one look at Harry and bundled him up to his bed. It was only after hours squashed between them that Harry relaxed enough to cry and then to sleep. The very next day Ron and Hermione’s clothes were in Sirius’ closet alongside his own, their toothbrushes next to his by the sink, and Kreacher made breakfast for three.

It seemed only natural that they would continue to live together, that they would stay ( _hide_ ) at Grimmauld Place as they had intended to many months back when they had tried to Floo there after infiltrating the Ministry. Their routine became rote; nightmares and flashbacks were shared by all, part of the sequence of their life. On the really bad days, they would cast the same regimen of spells over the bed as they had over their tent.

After months, it even seemed as if things were getting better. They were able to speak out loud more often, and a few more jokes became easier to tell. Then one evening, when Ron and Hermione were out for groceries, Harry opened the door for a knock and only the pain accompanying the crack to his head assured him that his friends hadn’t come back yet after all.

*

“... and last time Father and I were here, I thought they would never listen about the potency of ingesting hairless plumpies so we find it best to try to deal with things on our own now. It’s easier to heal that way, you see...”

Harry could only hear very faintly. He was used to pretending to be asleep--a useful survival skill living with the Dursleys--but he didn’t think he could open his eyes right now if he wanted to. His ears, however, were getting more and more useful as the seconds slid by. Shortly, Harry was entirely certain that Luna Lovegood was nearby, talking to him. It was a little longer before he could truly understand her words but soon enough he realized she was, in her singular fashion, being Luna ( _honest with him_ ).

“I know you probably won’t wake up now, the healer said it takes some time for the head to fix itself up. You’ve got to be a little more careful about Death Eaters, Harry, and renewing your protection spells. Anyway, you’d probably find it a bit shocking that I’m here before Ron and Hermione. I’m sure they will be around in a moment, only I was already here in the hospital when they brought you in. I’ve been talking to the Healers at St. Mungo’s for a long time now, just to talk, since Mum died, but after everything that happened with Voldemort and my father, well--it’s just good to work things out, you know? It’s as if I swallowed a whole bottle of pickled dirigible plums but took the antidote at the same time. Everything is getting worse and getting better at the same time. They are also really good in soup, pickled dirigible plums. I’ll have to make some soup for you soon, Harry, it’s the only thing for a headache...”

Though he never managed to open his eyes, Harry tried to find enough strength to squeeze the warm fingers lightly curled in his own before he sunk back down into darkness.

*

The bells on the door jingled as Harry pushed his way into the coffee shop. Ron was already here, looking a little flustered at his Muggle surroundings but otherwise healthy. Harry felt a little piece of his heart relax. The Healer said that this feeling was not a part of stress-induced dependency outside of the fact that Harry naturally had people he cared about.

Hermione arrived right after Harry sat down and she immediately started laughing at the sight of Ron exploring the thumb-sized containers of creamer. Rescuing the creamer from Ron’s well-intentioned grasp, she sat down next to Harry. For a second, with the three of them at a table waiting for coffee, Harry could smell the bitter smoke right after the attack, hear chairs hitting the floor as they dove out of the way--Hermione’s hand on his arm brought him quickly back to the present, and she smiled at him ( _not like the last time_ ).

“How are you both doing?” she asked.

“Well,” Harry said, Ron nodding in agreement. “And you?”

“My parents got back from Australia today,” she replied, “and I was able to make it to the airport with a memory restoration potion just as they came off the plane. Getting them to drink it was more difficult...”

“Let me guess, you slipped it in their tea while they were eating lunch--”

“Or gave them two cups of complementary coffee--”

“Bet she pulled a couple water bottles out of her string bag and--”

Hermione very much tried to roll her eyes at them in annoyance but she was beaming too much to pull it off. “Hush up, you two, or I won’t ever tell you anything ever again. They are back, they are restored, it’s really... well, it’s grand. It’s nice to be back home--to have a home.” Ron leaned across the table and kissed her forehead with a smacking sound, which somehow only made Hermione beam brighter. Harry managed to roll his eyes at that.

“How’s living with Neville?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Much better than I’d thought,” Ron said. “He’s a smashing cook and does all the washing, really I’d feel like a giant burden if it didn’t seem to make him so happy. Plus he can help me study to make up my N.E.W.T.S, which makes him even happier, the little bugger, though I suppose it’s not so bad as living with Looney Lovegood, eh, Harry? How do you survive?”

“One day you’ll believe me when I tell you that she understands me and--”

“--understands what you’re going through, I know, well and good, but really last time I dropped by and you were out, she kept going on about...”

Harry let himself be carried away in the mundane chatter, relishing its warmth. Weeks ago, when Harry had woken in the hospital, he’d woken also to the awareness that they had wounds he could not heal and he had let many of his own fester, covered over by years of having bigger threats to worry about. They couldn’t keep living in the same pattern; it wasn’t safe. The first week of living separately for all of them had been hell but they had already made it out of hell alive once; the odds had been good they could redo the feat.

Harry was glad to see that separation had finally allowed Ron and Hermione to work out what they had that didn’t include Harry. Not that extracting himself from between the two of them had been without hurt feelings and more words, but at least they could find words now. And now Ron and Hermione seemed to be heading towards something like true romance--as much as Ron could manage romance, anyway--and Harry was heading towards figuring out, well, maybe figuring out Ginny ( _love_ ).

“You are coming for Christmas at the Burrow, right Harry? Mum owls me twice a day to make sure you’ll both be there...”

Harry couldn’t help but be filled with a feeling of contentment, deep enough that it was almost too much, he could almost make himself fear that the other shoe would drop. Luna would scold him for that idea. "Being happy is being happy, Harry Potter."

Harry figured they could settle for being happy ( _together_ ).


End file.
